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Polling by YouGov – carried out in mid-August after the UK’s summer of five record-breaking heatwaves – shows only a quarter want to see another heatwave (25%), while two-thirds of people are not hoping it ‘does not happen’ (65%).
The polling comes the same week Richard Tice of Reform drew criticism for telling people to “enjoy” the heat, to reap it’s benefits (such as British winemaking), while suggesting that the only way to respond to climate change is to adapt.
This, along with the new polling, spotlights how heatwaves have become another politically divisive issue.
While a sizeable number of Reform voters do not hope for more heat (48%), they are by far the most likely group to say they are hoping for another heatwave (42%). The rest of the political spectrum do not share this view (just 21% of Labour and 12% of Green voters agree, for instance).
New polling by YouGov for Friends of the Earth reveals a high level of public support for the introduction of national maximum workplace temperature limits. 79% of people backed this measure amidst a summer of heat extremes in the UK, while just 10% were opposed. 11% said they don’t know.
The poll – carried out at the end of July following successive UK heatwaves – also found that:
In new polling by Ipsos, over half of British adults (56%) report that this year’s extreme heat has disrupted their ability to carry out normal daily activities like working, exercising, or sleeping.
And although people in the UK are trying to adapt their homes to cope with the heat – many have been finding costs to be a major barrier. Ipsos report that the top reason for not planning to make home cooling changes is “lack of affordability” (39%).
3 in 4 (74%) said they were concerned about climate change today following heatwave summer, and concerns about future summers were also clear: 9 in 10 (87%) think it’s likely that Britain will continue to experience similar severe heatwaves into the future.
A new research output by Climate Outreach shows that support for adaptation action significantly increases when people are shown tangible solutions, such as heat-proofing our homes and restoring natural flood defences.
The piece – based on a survey of 7,000 people across Britain (carried out in 2025) and in-depth focus groups across the UK – found that:
The findings echo Climate Barometer tracker data which shows that adaptation and mitigation are supported equally, as well as past research by Climate Outreach/Cardiff University showing that the public see these broad responses as ‘two sides of the same coin’.
Following multiple heatwaves, more than 50% of Britons say they are more fearful for what’s to come in the future, with more than 48% feeling more anxious about climate change. That’s according to polling by Survation for Climate Outreach and Round Our Way.
These views were broadly shared across political divides – 58% of people intending to vote Labour say that the heatwaves have made them feel more anxious about climate change as did 48% of Conservative Voters. Although this fell to around a third for Reform voters (33%).
The research also finds that 51% of people feel that it’s more important for the Government and businesses to tackle climate change, in light of the heatwaves. 61% of Labour’s 2024 voters agreed here, although again this fell to around a third (35%) amongst those who intend to vote for Reform.
New polling by More in Common shows that 86% of the UK public believe climate change to be either entirely or partially responsible for the June 2026 heatwave. This holds true even for those opposing net zero, with 63% of them seeing climate change as at least in part to blame for the extreme heat.
At the same time, more than 4 in 5 think the UK is unprepared to cope with extremely hot weather (84%) and more than 3 in 4 see the country as ill-equipped to deal with water shortages and drought (77%).
Asked about which groups they think are most negatively affected by extreme heat, the elderly (88%) and children (68%) were seen as worst impacted, closely followed by “ordinary people” (66%).
Describing the most recent heatwave in their own words, responses revealed a public struggling to cope, with words like “hot”, “worried”, “unbearable” and “uncomfortable” being mentioned most often:
Relatedly, the majority expect more political leadership on the issue: 59% of the public say they want the government to help people like them cope with the impacts of extreme heat, compared to 26% who think the government should do the same amount and only 5% who say the government should do less to help people like them cope.
A survey of 1,000 UK parents during June’s heatwave found that almost two-thirds said summers in the UK were “starting to feel genuinely unsafe for children”.
The poll, carried out by Focaldata on behalf of Round Our Way, found that more than half (53%) of parents said one or more of their children had missed had a school/college day cancelled, been sent home early, or been told to stay at home because of the hot weather.
40% of parents said children came home from school overheated and exhausted, while many (46%) said their children were unable to play outside because it was too hot.
Polling by YouGov for Greenpeace has shed light on how people’s sleep, health, and work were disrupted by June’s heatwave across the UK:
There was clear support when it comes to improving heat policies and structural measures:
● Over half of respondents (56%) said their homes need retrofit upgrades to cope with future heatwaves – yet 78% would struggle to afford them.
● Almost half (46%) of UK adults said they would support a levy on high-carbon emitting companies to fund these essential upgrades.
● 22% of UK adults were forced to throw away food that spoiled in the heat, went off sooner than expected or couldn’t be kept cool – compounding cost-of-living pressures.
New survey data shows that nearly three quarters (71%) believe the government should make adapting to climate risks like floods, heat, and droughts an “urgent, top priority”, while only a minority (15%) disagreed.
The findings, from a nationally representative UK survey in collaboration with Flooded People, highlight the public desire for action on impacts like floods, storms, heat and drought.
While experts in the climate sector separate out ‘adaptation’ and ‘mitigation’, our new data shows that a majority (55%) think these two broad responses should be prioritised equally (echoing our previous tracker insights).
The survey also showed that most people report one or more direct experience of climate impacts. Heatwaves and extreme heat are the most commonly experienced climate impact (felt by 46%). A third have experienced ‘severe storms’ (30%), and a fifth say they have been directly affected either by flooding or poor air quality (both 21%). It’s less than a third (29%) who still say they have “no experience of impacts” at all.
New data from Public First shows that the public believe that climate risks – are becoming more frequent and severe. Nine in ten (87%) expecting the UK to be impacted again in the next five years.
The public feel the UK is least prepared for flooding (70% said not prepared), closely followed by heatwaves (68%). Dry spells and drought (66%), wind storms (66%), and cold snaps (57%) were also seen as areas of unpreparedness.
Most believe that better planning could reduce the severity of weather impacts, but many are not sure what that looks like in practice. When asked directly, a majority (60%) say it is ‘possible’ to reduce the effect of climate impacts, but they are uncertain of how.
A new study has examined how adults in England respond to extreme heat and heat-health alerts.
The researchers carried nationally representative online survey in August 2025, finding that not all UK heat experiences are equal, and that heat health alerts do not straightforwardly lead to behavioural changes.
Looking deeper into what beliefs influenced responses, the researchers found that people’s behaviour was associated with a sense of the heatwave severity, the possible benefits of acting, a sense of barriers in the way, and their confidence in carrying out actions (self-efficacy).
Polling by IPPR and Persuasion UK has highlighted high levels of net support for heat and flood adaptation policies in the UK. The policies receiving the highest net support were:
The poll also found that 81% of people feel the UK is unprepared for the worst impacts of climate change, although 59% of people think it’s not yet too late to avoid the worst impacts.
When it comes to climate adaptation vs. reducing emissions, just 5% of people say they would prioritise adaptation alone.
This builds on previous polling by Climate Barometer showing that the majority of people feel the UK is not well prepared for climate impacts, and most feel climate adaptation is equally important alongside the shift to clean energy.
The government’s newly published Local Power Plan points the country in a direction that the British public support: clean energy that’s transparent, affordable, and delivers real benefits to communities and their local environments.
Our latest Climate Barometer tracker shows that people across the UK are in agreement on the top priorities for new infrastructure in their area. These are: the project’s impact on the local environment, what it means for energy bills, and whether it benefits the local community.
Though their order varies slightly, these three priorities are consistently the highest for all groups across age, gender, region, social grade, housing tenure, political affiliation, education level, ethnicity, and whether they live in urban or rural areas.
People’s views on climate change and net zero were fairly low on the list, highlighting (at least when it comes to specific clean energy projects) that local impacts and practical considerations loom larger for the public than the salience of climate change as a wider issue.
This doesn’t mean joining the dots with the risks of climate change and the benefits net zero can bring isn’t important – it’s crucial. But getting the delivery of policies like the Local Power Plan right is a key route to rebuilding climate salience and shoring up support for the wider net zero programme.
The government’s newly published Local Power Plan points the country in a direction that the British public support: clean energy that’s transparent, affordable, and delivers real benefits to communities and their local environments.
When we asked about the three most important factors for involving local communities on infrastructure proposals, both the public and MPs were most likely to select “clear, plain language information about the project and its impacts” and “being asked for views early, before decisions are made”. These were followed by “a clear explanation of how views influenced the final decision” for MPs and “independent or trusted organisations running the process” for the public.
When we asked which 3 factors people felt were most important in terms of influencing their support or opposition for local infrastructure projects, they picked: the project’s impact on the local environment, on energy bills and on the local community as the top considerations.
These three priorities are consistently the highest for all groups across age, gender, region, social grade, housing tenure, political support, education level, ethnicity, and whether they live in urban or rural areas; a rare point of alignment between these different subgroups of the public.
Strikingly, what made much less of a difference were people’s views about climate change and net zero.
This doesn’t mean that belief in (or concern about) climate change isn’t a critical foundation on which to build engagement around clean energy in general (this is the core idea behind linking the ‘how and the why’ on net zero, as we argued in our recent message testing work with Public First).
But when it comes to specific clean energy projects, the local impacts and financial considerations loom larger: as the transition becomes ever more place-based, this trend is only likely to accelerate.
Like support for the 2050 net zero target, support for renewables comfortably outpaces opposition. And people are much more likely to consider renewables as the route to building energy security than fossil fuels.
But there is a creeping growth in support for oil and gas – wrapped up in the very same conversation about energy security. Since the 2024 election, support among MPs for expanding drilling for oil and gas has inched up, driven by Conservative MPs pursuing an increasingly Reform-influenced agenda on domestic energy policy.
Yet, despite most Britons supporting clean energy, even when it means wind and solar farms in their local area, there remains a clear perception gap. As covered by Business Green, our most recent data shows that both the public and MPs continue to overestimate local opposition to these renewable developments.
Our tracker shows the enduring popularity of policies that also save on household bills (like installing insulation, or incentives to do so).
Although Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) get a bad rep, our tracker shows support outweighing opposition and support gently rising over the past three years.
One way to look at levels of policy support across the piece is that they’re really quite stable – but some are not stable in a good way. When it comes to sales of new gas boilers, and the phase out of sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles, opposition started to outpace support around 18 months ago, and this trend has (slowly) continued.